Capital Avenue: State Road 331, the corridor the city fought over

1933–2013 · FROM MAIN STREET TO THE EASTERN EXPRESSWAY

State Road 331 is two roads wearing one number, and the older one ran down Main Street: SR 331 first appeared on the February 1933 edition of the Indiana State Highway Commission's map, running from SR 25 in the south — by way of Bourbon and Bremen — north to SR 2, the Lincolnway line, at Mishawaka. By 1953 it had been extended northward through the city to US 20 — up Main Street to the McKinley Avenue junction, on the route record; State Road 933's own record names the surviving cross street in those terms, Main Street as "Old SR 331." South of downtown the old road came up the Union Street and Elm Road line — the parkway's interchange list still names the south junction "Indiana 331/Union Street" — and the road south of the city is Elm Road to this day. Between 1980 and 1987, on the route record, SR 331 was routed east of downtown Mishawaka: the number began its move to the corridor that would replace the Main Street course entire.

The expressway, in stages: The new corridor was built toward a junction that preceded it. The Indiana Toll Road's Exit 83 — Capital Avenue in Mishawaka — opened 17 November 1982, and the Toll Road built the interchange, on the 1999 account the road record preserves, "to connect with the Capital Avenue Freeway," at a time when Capital Avenue near the interchange was only a two-lane connector to SR 23. The river section came next: the new Capital Avenue Bridge over the St. Joseph opened in the fall of 1986 on De Kever's account, part of an expressway that initially connected Lincolnway East to Jefferson Boulevard — the 1999 report in the road record dates the river section's building to 1987, and the one-year difference stands printed, as this build's Transit section prints it. North of the river the building went on in pieces the same records date: twin bridges over the Toll Road in 1996, carrying the road one street south to Cleveland Road; extension to Douglas Road in late 1997 and early 1998; the Douglas-to-Day Road portion open by 2003; construction from Day Road toward Jefferson Boulevard begun 30 June 2004; and the Day-to-McKinley stretch — McKinley, old US 20 — opened 9 December 2004. The 331 designation was applied to Capital Avenue's completed portions from the late 1990s: the South Bend Tribune of 20 May 1999 reported "Signs to Mark Elm, Capital as Indiana 331," though identification from the Toll Road itself did not exist until 2005. The fight the corridor carried — the seven houses between Brook and Capital Avenues, Representative Craig Fry's 2002 amendment, the Preservation Commission's jurisdictional opposition — is this build's Heritage section, whole; the corridor fact this section keeps is that the road's building was the occasion of the fight, and that the fate of the seven houses is not established in the record reached, there or here.

Finished late, by statute's measure: The corridor's completion was prescribed by law — Indiana Code § 8-23-8-10 set the locations of the section's intersections and required the whole project complete by 1 January 2009. It was not: the last section, from Twelfth Street to the parkway with the railroad underpass, opened in 2012–13 on De Kever's account, and INDOT's own release dates the project's finish to 30 September 2013 — four years past the statutory deadline, printed here as the record gives it. In August 2014 INDOT relinquished the parallel portions of the old route it had acquired in 1999; the Tribune headline of 14 September 2014 was "City Takes Capital Remnants." What stands is an eight-mile divided highway, among the busiest thoroughfares in the county on the commissioned history's measure, running from the St. Joseph Valley Parkway north through the Toll Road to its prescribed end at State Road 23 in Granger — SR 331's northern terminus, fixed by Indiana Code § 8-23-6-1. The city's northern cap on the corridor came in 2015, when Beacon Parkway, a 4,000-foot street joining Fir Road and Capital Avenue to the Toll Road interchange, was completed — carried in this build's Transit section and built on here. A road that began on a 1933 map as a farm-to-market line up Main Street ends as the city's eastern expressway; the number never changed, and almost nothing else about it didn't.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia, "Indiana State Road 331," from the commission's own maps — first appearance February 1933 (SR 25 to SR 2); the 1953 extension north to US 20; the 1980–1987 rerouting east of downtown; the June 1999 relocation north of the parkway; Indiana Code §§ 8-23-6-1 and 8-23-8-10 (the prescribed course, intersections, and the 1 January 2009 deadline); INDOT's release of 30 September 2013 (project finished); the August 2014 relinquishment.
2. The metropolitan route record (Roadfan), including the Chris Marysz report of 19 May 1999 it preserves — Exit 83 built by the Toll Road to connect with the Capital Avenue Freeway; the 1996 twin bridges to Cleveland Road; Douglas Road late 1997/early 1998; Douglas-to-Day by 2003; Day Road construction from 30 June 2004 and the Day-to-McKinley opening of 9 December 2004; the 331 designation on completed portions from the late 1990s and Toll Road identification from 2005; the "Indiana 331/Union Street" interchange naming.
3. This build's South Bend Corridors record — Toll Road Exit 83 (State Road 331) opened 17 November 1982.
4. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History, as carried in this build's Transit section — the bridge opened fall 1986 (against the 1999 report's 1987 building date), the expressway completed 2012–13, the eight-mile divided highway; and Transit's Beacon Parkway of 2015.
5. South Bend Tribune — "Signs to Mark Elm, Capital as Indiana 331" (20 May 1999); "City Takes Capital Remnants" (14 September 2014).
6. This build's Heritage section — the seven Capital Avenue houses and the 2002 amendment fight, at pointer; the houses' fate a named gap in both files.